I was very sorry to hear the sad news that the chef Antonio Carluccio has died.

The Italian food guru, who ran a restaurant in Exeter and had a glittering career as a celebrity chef, was charming and entertaining company when I had lunch with him in his Princesshay restaurant.

He was also deeply eccentric, it seemed. During lunch, he demanded that his staff cooked him white asparagus to be served with parmesan cheese. To their barely concealed dismay, he preferred to eat that simple dish rather than the carefully-curated menu they had prepared for his visit.

Carluccio's in Exeter

Antonio had a chain of Italian restaurants all across the country, which was sold for £90 million in 2010 but he stayed on as its figurehead and inspiration. The company now employs more than 3,000 staff.

Sadly, Antonio died today after a fall at home, aged 80. When I met him a few years ago, he had been on a crash diet and halved his once-generous weight, he told me. He was looked after assiduously by his motherly assistant, Anna-Louise Taylor-Leyland, who had been with him for many years and seemed to act rather as his nanny as well as PA. "He's just competeing with me to lose weight, since I went on a diet," she confided. "He loves to be centre of attention." He was certainly a little bit bonkers and very capricious. But great fun, too.

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During the lunch, which was put on by Carluccio’s in Exeter to celebrate his visit to the restaurant, we had a satisfying gossip about his wider family. He was married for many years to Priscilla Conran, the sister of Sir Terence Conran the founder of Habitat. He confided that he was “furious” with Sir Terence after his divorce and felt thoroughly aggrieved by the way he had left the family business under acrimonious circumstances after parting ways with Priscilla. He was indiscreet and hilariously funny.

Indeed, he revealed in his autobiography that Anna-Louise had saved his life - he attempted suicide in 2008 when suffering from depression. When I met him, he seemed full of life and very happy once again.

I still have the copy he gave me of his Two Greedy Italians cookbook, based on the TV show he starred in alongside his great friend and fellow chef Gennaro Contaldo. “They wanted to call it Two Fat Italians,” he confided in me. “But he was much too vain to stand for that!” chipped in Anna-Louise.

It is inscribed to me in flamboyant handwriting, and he wrote a message so affectionate that I worried slightly about my husband reading it. The world of good food and fabulous cooking is certainly a more dull place now that Antonio Carluccio has gone.